I've been looking into building a shipyard. Originally I was thinking of an SYIII, but I've been looking at prices for varium and I see a lot at or around 12,000 credits per(mining factions selling public at least). Obviously with such high varium requirements to build that's a lot of credits, and that's a lot of credits I don't have(yet). Over time I'll be saving, but I kinda want to know from some people who have been constructing ships for a while now, so I have a few questions that keep putting me in the same circle that I can't get out of...

Would it be better to build/save money for a SYI, II, or III? IV is out of the question, far to expensive for me. I don't want to buy one straight out, I want it where I want it to be, not half way across the galaxy. I'm also considering the construction time of the SY, but I don't have a problem with patience so that's not really an issue.

I'd like to be able to build light and heavy freighters, frigates, and perhaps one or two capitals in the far future. Would construction times take too long for higher tier ships for profit, and would be best to do small freighters/fighters with an SYI? Or the other way around?

My opinion... if you are just starting out, buy a few Factories (with the PGs so you don't get screwed over). You can produce ships up to 80 meters (basically all Light Freighters, Gunboats, Fighters, and Satellites. Plus you can make items and weapons and vehicles and such to see if you even like Production in the first place.
These should not take too long to produce, compared to multiple months of corvettes and frigates. Many time people will sell Start production on a big ship and sell it as Under Construction for a few % less than a completed one might sell for. Instant money without waiting months. Then they use those profits and buy mats and DCs to start another ship on another Shipyard they own. This method does not really work if you own a single Shipyard, like your situation would be.
I think you are best sticking with the smaller stuff for now.
If you like it enough, then maybe look into a Shipyard.
-Arch.

I had never thought of the factory. But I think if I were to go with that plan I would much rather just have a whole city to myself, but that'll cost even more but probably more rewarding in the long run. Even more so, I'll have a hard time finding a place somewhere around where I want.

I'll weigh my options. No rush here. But does anyone have suggestions for who to buy RM from?

I believe SY2s are pointless at the moment. Bar any of the new ships being longer, last I looked there was only 1 ship that was too long for an SY1 but short enough for an SY2. Either go for an SY1 or SY3. Obviously an SY3 would be better in the long term as you would have more options, but there is a large variety of ships that can be built in an SY1.

Also, factory stations are useful if you intend on building just light freighters and fighters.

Ellias is pretty much correct, more than likely you'd only be able to produce a Medical Neb and a C-3 on a Shipyard 2 that wouldn't be able to make on a Shipyard 1. The rest of the DCs are locked down pretty tight, or you need a larger yard to make an MTC (III) or a Tabder (IV)
A factory station costs a heck of a lot more than a factory to make (5x last time I checked a year or so ago) and operate (lack of civilization), but you can build it anywhere in deep space you please and never have to worry about power or people spamming Slave markets on the planet too.
Also you can fit a dozen factories in a single city, but only 1 factory station fits in a space square at a time.
When in doubt, start small and you'll have less to lose if you make a mistake. Put 1 worker on an Armor production line, oops. Put 1 worker on an MTC... GG.
--Arch, out.

X-7 will save much time up and down over the long haul, and you don't have to worry if the city next to yours is shielded. I have ground based factories that work perfectly fine, but are more time consuming.
And a SY3 is IMHO the best compromise between function, price, and long term investment. Although larger ships will tie them up for great periods of time.

If you look at the price of a SY-2 vs. a SY-3, the SY-3 isn't too terribly much more, but you can build everything up to an ISD in it (Not that you'd probably ever see that DC until R&D is ready). For most private shipbuilding though, a SY-1 or X-7 work fine.

Here's a ref of ship building sizes for the different stations. You can figure out what you plan on building and which station you'll want to do it.

Ya, I compared the prices between SY's 1-3 and saw there wasn't much of a jump between 2 and 3.

I think I will go with my original plan with an SYIII though. I would much prefer the ability to build larger ships in the future rather than build small and work my way up and build bigger SY's over the time.

I'd recommend getting one of Ellias' calculators too. That can really help you make plans for the future, you can see how much time and expense it will take to build things and make your own decisions based on that.

We made the decision to go for SY IIs and IVs because we wanted the option of building tabders (but we have our own varium supply which makes a huge difference in investment costs) with those SYs we can build what we want. We do a lot of MedNeb building so the SYII was better for us than a III as our SYIV can build anything too big for a II.

So get the calculator and work a few things out and see what works best for you.

With building ships, is there a space limit on how much you can build at one time? For example, with ships that are less than 80 meters (or however long it is for ships to be built INSIDE stations), can we only build one ship at a time? Or can we build multiple within a given area of space? So if I have 300 m^3, I can build 6 50m length ships simultaneously.

Same question for outside the ship, but I figured that it's probably as many as you want since your out in space....

Yes, with SYs, most definitely the ships are built inside the station if they're smaller than 80 m.

The space limit rules are the same as for Factories.

Shiplength 80m or larger, it's built outside and there is no Space limit.
There is, however, a hard cap of 48 per queueitem. So even if you could fit more than 48 of say Escape Pods in a shipyard, you can only make them 48 simultaneously, and even though you can theoretically fit an infinite number of Tabders outside, you can only make 48 at a time (assuming you can actually store enough materials in ships/stations adjacent).

To further the last portion of the thread, could anyone verify what I believe to be the case with outside the SY production.
Several ships can be constructed at once as long as RM and npcs are adequate, AND the ships being produced are of the same type??

Question??: Retooling to a different type can't be done until the production has finished for the ship currently being produced has completed.. correct ?? (aside from pausing construction and bumping in que projects).